Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodinma, has tasked Nigerian youths on the need to become creative thinkers and developers of ideas as part of their contribution to the diversification of the nation’s economy.
Uzodinma gave the advice on the occasion of the International Youth Day organised by the Catholic Youth Organisation of Nigeria (CYON) of the Holy Trinity Parish, Maitama in Abuja.
According to him, “What rule the world now are ideas and these are conceived by people. Once they are conceived and marketed, people will buy into them. So, as you grow, you don’t just rely on the service sector of the economy as the only way of being employed.
“You must strive to see how you can become creative thinkers. You must conceive ideas even as individuals or groups. I urge you to develop ideas so that you can get our buy-in. Through that medium, we can have an economy that will easily be diversified and our nation will be better for it.”
Uzodinma said the youths could decide from the outset of their career development to become very enterprising by being self-employed and grow to be employer of labour, adding “we want to go into a real society where young men and women will be seen as not only relying on heritage alone but also having a way of contributing their own quotas, individually or collectively, towards national development.
“This is the kind of society I want us to see because the reality of today is that what is in the coffers of government is not enough to take care of everybody’s interest. So we have to expand; we have to expand the scope of existence and engagement.”
He stated that this could only be done if the youths challenged themselves and began to conceive ideas that would allow production from point of conception, through design and engineering, to Implementation.
Uzodinma said that this would give birth to a jumbo economy, explaining that “these are the kinds of motivated young men and women I want to see in our society.”
He specifically called on Catholic youths to distinguish themselves by drawing motivation from the orientation of the Catholic Church and the provisions of the canon regulations, stressing also the need for them to be liberal, showing love to neighbours, eschewing violence and designing roadmaps to economic and political leadership.
According to him, “You can from today say; this is what I want to be in 20 years, and you design what you want to be in 2 years that will help what you will be in 5 years, that will now move into what you will be in 10 years and you see yourself going there.
“Periodically, you take a review (have I really accomplished what is expected of my road map, which is the guide?). We call it a developmental template. You should put it in place for yourself and then use it as a guide because, actually, we must now begin to allow participation for the second-tier leadership.
“It is my view that we are rolling over leadership too much. People must come to the dancing arena, dance easily and within a short period. Let it be a beautiful dance and then give space for the younger once to come, so that, over time, those that danced before us will go into the advisory role and begin to advise the society, the leadership and the government on what they think.”
He reminded the youths that the world had become a global village and warned of the possibility of their being left behind if they failed to do what others were doing.
According to him, “You must begin to look at people in South-Africa. What are the young men and women doing that are being acclaimed all over the world? What are the youths in England doing?
“There is no need to use a local model as the basis for your developmental comparison. You should pick the best: go to the apogee of development and look at those who are there, the participants, and then go through their history, find out how they manage.
“Then you can now domesticate how they managed in their local circumstances and also use that as a climbing ladder and you will be home and dry. There is no rocket science to it. It is commitment and dedication. Once the idea is there, you bring it out, baptise it, and sooner than later, it starts getting communion according to the Catholic Church.”
